spluuuurge
Topic: On the way to Triathlon
okay! I did it! I can't believe it! I finally got it! It cost more then my first car!

I now have a brand new, shiny, black and blue Treck 5000!!!!!!!!! With a normal helmet, and even some normal bike clothes! For all of you
who don't read "geek" - this is a brand spanking new bike. So if
anyone wants a nice red Marathon Raleigh road bike, with kick stand,
lock, water bottle, and pump, let me know! It fits Heights 5'3 to 5'4
womens.

tri-al
Now Playing: sad sad violins
who came up with this torture?

18 100s with decreasing intervals - that was the main set of our swim workout today. WTF!!!! My arms are going to fall off.

It looks like this:
Friday - swam a 1/2 mile on my own
Sat - swam almost a mile in the lake
sun - 18 x 100
mon - training with Bob.

I love Bob! He's like the coolest personal trainer ever! He makes it huuurt. I think I was lifting 50 lb weights today. That's not bad for 3 weeks. Turns out I'm much weaker then I thought, and I already see a difference with my 3 sports from the extra calisthenics training. Go Bob!

I made Bob a fitness goals list. He's working on my being able to do a pullup. By the end of the year.

swimmin
today was my first time swimming in the lake. the temperature was
about 60 degrees in the water, 72 in the air, and we did about .8 of a
mile. Boy do my arms hurt. wetsuit is a lot harder on the arms. I took
a lot of breaks, but probably strung together several 75/100/50 yards.
Swam past some baby ducks with their mum. Coach says regarding
organic debree in the Lake Michigan WatER: just tell yourself, even if
it has gills or feathers, it's still a piece of wood.

70 days till the 1/2 ironman. every workout counts. every workout counts.

my life
Now Playing: sad sad violins
Topic: on the way to... marriage
poor me. my life right now is:

1/2 ironman training
sleep
eat
take care of pets
work
drive to and from the various activities
plan wedding
house hunting/moving

yeah... that's about it. It leaves ne with about 1-2 waking hours of free time... and that's going on 6 hours of sleep max... Heeeeelp! It'll be like this until after october 9th... possibly longer.

what happened?
i am trying to eat less... so that i get as lean as possible for the tri.

Then how do things like that happen? I run out to grab breakfast,
looking for a yogurt parfait. I come back with a strawberry filled
dunkin donuts croissant. What happened? The worst paRT: I ate the
croissant. Gross!

trining

lifestuff
Yesterday I sort of ran my 45 minute required run for the tri
training. I skipped out on most of my training while in europe,
although we did average 8 miles and 500 steps a day. The run HURT. I
can't run in heat. I was running slow as a snail, and my heart rate
was pushing 98%! Yuck! Dunno if that's because I'm still jetlagged, or
because I took the time off, or all because of the heat... AFTER the
run, my tri coach said - uh, you are suppose to be 1.5 minutes over
your normal mile time in this heat. NOW you tell me??? Now?

I am going to try to get a running coach to improve my gate. If you
know of one, please drop me a note!

This morning I pedaled out 1/2 of my required bike ride.... 1/2 to go,
this afternoon.

as promised - pix
the pix for the trip are in the blog link below on the right

hello from florence
Dear Blog Readers - I am engaged!!!! wooo hooo!

Ben popped the question in Prague, at the castle.

pix r on our picture blog ask if you want the link IL

day 4? - european trip
Guess I better back it up some:

|'ve been in europe for the last few days. Starting Monday the 27th of May.

27 May 05 - 5am - 11 pm travel from chicago to england, first class.
boy, first class sure is nice

28 May 05 - 29 May 05: hung out with Norbert and Tanja in England. Saw
Les Mis, The buckingham palace, Thems, Big Ben, and Trafalgar sqaure.

We stayed in between Lester Square and Piccadilly Circuse. I think my
favorite british food is a black currant tart.

Ate at the Square, one of the top restaurants in town. Had lunch in a
boat on the river.

30 May - 31 May - we are in Austria, about to drive off to Hungary.

Vienna was great - walked around for about 7 hours yesterday, ate at
the #1 restaurant in town, now forgot the name, and then had Saher
Torte at teh Saher cafe.

I had coffee at the Ferstl Castle in Austria yesterday (by accident).
Let's see... it's pretty big - takes up a city block, and has 3
restaurants (including the very famous Central Cafe, that was
frequented by the Illuminati, Freud, and a variety of other people
that were historically important) and a mall in it, as well as I don't
know what upstairs. They gave me a fact sheet about the castle, but I
haven't chanced to read it yet. Austria retained its stronghold as my
second favorite country in Europe.

If you wanna see the castle... pix for that part of my day are not up
yet, but they will be like tomorrow.

http://homepage.mac.com/bengottlieb/PhotoAlbum5.html is the blog link.

Good bye sheep's curds, hello duck gizzards and pig innards - on on, to Hungary!